I love chocolate cake and here is another goodie (easy to make) but so rich. Would be yummy warm with berries, cream, ice cream, yoghurt - you name it, it will be good!!!
Ingredients:
185gm bitter sweet chocolate (the more cocoa the better - I use Whitakers dark cacao - 72%)
185gm butter
a few drops of almond essence
2 Tbspn strong coffee
4 eggs separated
1 cup caster sugar
1 and 3/4 cups ground almonds
Glaze Ingredients:
125gm chocolate (same as for the cake)
2 Tbspn caster sugar
1 Tbspn corn syrup (I used glucose syrup - don't even know if there is a difference, but it worked perfecly well and was yummy!)
20gm butter
Method:
1. Heat the oven to 160 degrees C, grease and line a spring form pan (23cmish)
2. Break the chocolate up into small pieces and melt over a low heat with the butter, almond essence and coffee.
3. Put mixture into a bowl and let cool.
Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until soft peaks form then add half the sugar just a little at a time continually whisking until the mixture is thick and glossy.
4. Whisk the remaining sugar with the egg yolks until thick and then fold this into the chocolate mixture. Add the ground almonds and mix until well combined.
5. Whisk in a little of the egg whites to lighten the mix and then fold in the remaining egg whites gently.
6. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 35 - 40 minutes. Keep checking your cake reguarly after 30 minutes. It should be dry on the outside (sort of brownie looking) but gooey in the middle.
7. Leave the cake in the tin to cool for 20 minutes then leave it on the base only to cool further
To make the glaze
1. Break chocolate into small pieces
2. Bring a quarter of a cup of water, sugar and corn syrup to the boil in a saucepan then remove from the heat. Add the chocolate and swirl it around in the pan then let it stand for 3 minutes.
3. Whisk the butter into the chocolate mixture then pour over the cake using a spatula to ease the icing out to the edges thn leave to 'set' before slicing.
It is a glaze so it won't go hard at all, just deliciously sticky!
